What Do I Really Want to Learn?

For this week, I need to answer the question "what do I really want to learn?" 

Well, I can answer this question in a few different ways. I can talk about what I want to learn overall in life, but I am assuming this question should be more specific to the study of religion, which is fine because religious studies relates to my overall life goal. In regards to religion, I really want to learn about Buddhism as well as Middle Eastern religions. 

The reason I want to learn about Buddhism is mainly selfish. As a Christian Protestant who is questioning her beliefs, I feel that Buddhism might line up with a lot of what I believe today. I want to learn more about this popular belief of Karma and how it has a religious background. I also love to meditate. I would love to learn more about meditation and how it can change your spiritual being as well as affect overall health and being. 

In terms of Middle Eastern religions, I want to learn a lot more about the main principles and start to understand the differences between Middle Eastern religions and mainstream American religions. I want to be able to compare the two cultures because I feel that a lot of wars (especially the current war in Iran and Iraq) are caused by a difference in religion. Not only a difference in religion, but a misunderstanding of religion as well as culture and language. 

I truly believe that many religions enforce dogmatic thinking among young people especially. One of my goals in life is to be an educator. As an educator, I want to be able to create a free environment among my class. I want my students to be able to think for themselves and question everything. Education in America is very stiff and I believe this stems historically from a tradition of having Christian ideals saturated throughout the way we learn. While religion can build a sense of hope, I feel it causes people to live a way of life without even thinking about what they're doing. It can cause people to lose a sense of their humanity because, historically, many hate crimes have stemmed from strict religious beliefs. 

Of course not all religions cause dogmatic thinking and foster cycles of hate. Therefore, I want to learn more about other religions that allow for free thinking. I want to learn about the religions that offer a sense of balance in life and celebrate humanity. Because we are all humans here on earth learning how to get through life, which is why I think we need to focus on being kind and respectful to one another. This comes from learning about a difference in beliefs, whether it be religion, culture, language, or sexuality.

 At the end of the day, I hope to learn as much as possible about everything and anything and I am excited to see what the semester holds.